December 16, 2017

“So look,” the text from Page to Strzok reads, “you say we text on that phone when we talk about Hillary because it can’t be traced, you were just venting [because] you feel bad that you’re gone so much but it can’t be helped right now.”...

People familiar with the matter said that, although Page’s message may appear to suggest that she and Strzok used a separate communications channel for discussing the Clinton case, the point of her text was to advise Strzok how to explain to his wife why the two of them had been texting each other.

Page and Strzok used their work on the Clinton case as a cover story for the affair, these people said, adding that there was not a separate set of phones for untraceable discussions of the Clinton case. The text had nothing to do with the Clinton investigation, these people said.

We're talking about a senior FBI lawyer and a senior counterintelligence agent.

“What people are forgetting is the human foible of a having an affair — they forget that the system itself will betray you and your texts,” said David Gomez, a former FBI counterterrorism official. “Using language like that is something a lot of people who have affairs do, but it does create problems with people who are conspiracy minded.’’

We're asked to believe sex made them this stupid. And we're asked not to look too hard because it must have been about sex, and we're "conspiracy minded" if we see anything but their getting stupid because of sex. But their sexual desire — however profound and stupid-making it may have been — doesn't make us stupid. Keep looking.

And Washington Post, come on. You need to do better. The second-to-last paragraph of this story is an embarrassment:

The issue has come up before. In 2014, an FBI agent was caught texting on the witness stand at a trial and then lied under oath about it. She killed herself hours after the incident. Law enforcement officials said her texts were innocuous messages exchanged with her husband while passing time in court.

I'm not saying you ought to kill yourself over that, and I'm sorry for family of the woman who killed herself over lying on the witness stand about texting in 2014, but that's a cheap, lame, overreaching effort to make us lay off Strzok and Page. "The issue has come up before" — what issue?

What was stupid was texting each other on their FBI email accounts about personal stuff. Every company I ever worked for had me sign an agreement that any emails on my company account belonged to the company.

This is one of those periods when the news can constantly surprise me. I wasn't expecting the Trump campaign, or his many victories making him almost tired of winning. I wasn't expecting waves of accusations/revelations about sexual misconduct, some based on solid evidence like the Franken photo, some mere allegations, many leading to serious consequences of some kind for the person accused. Did the Weinstein thing get going because Democrats wanted to get their own hands clean so they could keep going after Trump? I don't know, but if so I don't think it's working.Now: it seems that several senior people at the Justice Department and FBI are worse people than Trump or anyone close to him, more inclined to violate the law and/or the Constitution to follow their personal agendas, and so on. Amazing. Of course the media has pretty much given up on fact checking, other than a childish list of Trump's lies. Trump has a way of bringing his troubles on himself--firing Comey was probably a mistake--but somehow, maybe inadvertently, he is bringing fresh air and sunlight to the swamp.

The top FBI counterintelligence official was having an affair and sent/received 10,000 text messages with his mistress on government phones. Just let that sink in. Stupid. Arrogant. Really poor judgment. And likely not the only time he exercised stupid, arrogamt, bad judgment.

This is classic methodology of liberal media. Example 1: collusion to conspiracy to obstruction of justice. 2: hide the text messages to nothing to see here to invading their privacy to sex made them stupid.

Bill Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation. He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss. If anyone in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know.

Chuck, what is your point? Is it that the sex angle explains everything Strzok did, so on that basis what he did is OK? Silly me, I thought these folks had professional standards apart from their private life...

Help me out. According the the WSJ The FBI refused to be interviewed by Mueller unless they signed Non disclosure statements. Nullifying Congress' constitional power of oversight. This single fact is enough to fire all the political appointees at the FBI, and the DOJ and Mueller. This is firing for cause. Trump loves to tweet, this should be prime stuff.

Question: Would Hillary pay as much money as the new University of Nebraska football coach is making in order to stay out of jail and win an election? Some might call it an insurance policy using other people's money.

The thing is that most of these non political appointee "criminals" can't be fired. For instance McCabe is a careerist , he is protected by Civil Service, they can't even reassign him if he doesn't consent. So he either voluntarily resigns or be indicted.

In that single case that they mentioned, their story is believable. Of course they ignore all of the other stuff, and I don't have to even read the WaPo to make that statement, unless they are presenting the argument that all of this preventing Trump stuff was code, you know, like "your husband is cock-blocking me" or something.

Blogger iowan2 said..."Help me out. According the the WSJ The FBI refused to be interviewed by Mueller unless they signed Non disclosure statements."

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is a federal agency that polices personnel practices. It is not the same thing as Mueller's probe. The OSC interviewed top FBI officals regarding Hatch Act (re: political bias) violations in the Hillary email investigation. The FBI refused to let the OSC interview them unless it first signed unprecedented nondisclosure agreements, giving the FBI full authority to withhold the information from Congress.

Crazy times. The FBI and certain posters here believed literally Hitler had won the election and thought back to the discussions they had in eight grade about how brave and history changing it would have been to strangle the baby Hitler in his crib.

From the WaPo article: "At a congressional hearing this week, several Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee seized on one message in particular, a text Page sent to Strzok in April 2016. At the time, both played key roles in the Clinton investigation. Lawmakers have called the exchange suspicious". ( my emphasis)

Holy crap. Not one comment about the really damning text (and everybody here knows which one I'm talking about).

@Mac, they can be arrested and jailed. They can be sent to Alaska in the winter and made to work in an unheated office and to the Everglades every summer and made to work in an unaircondittoned office.

There is an apocryphal story that’s been circulating around Washington for something like 50 years about how the Civil Service Board refused to let an agency fire an employee even though he had murdered his manager. So you’re right about Civil Service regs.

When this all started, Althouse made no secret of wanting to understand what this seemingly bizarre political event of the arrival, via an escalator, like one of those scenes in an old movie where the actress arrives descending a staircase. (There is a scene like that in A Christmas Prince, BTW) "All of my best scenes have been on staircases" I think some actress said.

Anyway, "Because half the country is made up of complete idiots" never seemed like a really satisfying answer. But I guess it is all Chuck needs to consider the matter closed.

Please. The WaPo is in the tank for Hillary and the democrats. It's the DNC house organ. Come on, do better? This is what you get from a biased hack-D press and WaPO. Biased reporting that makes excuses for insider D-corruption.

Everyone knows Hillary's Private Server was set up so she could line her own pockets. Which she did. Then - all the e-mails and devices were destroyed. The unprofessional corruption excusing d-hacks inside the FBI wiped Hillary clean with a cloth.

He made the statement in a message to Lisa Page, a bureau lawyer with whom he was having an extramarital affair. Strzok referred to an alternative FBI ‘path’ regarding Trump’s ‘unlikely’ election that Page had proposed during a meeting they’d attended in ‘Andy’s office’ — meaning deputy director Andrew McCabe, the bureau’s number-two official, second only to then-director James Comey.

Yeah, I have to believe that "alternative path" is a reference to anal sex. The meeting in "Andy's office" well, obviously this refers to an assignation.

The more I read it, the more I buy the Washington Post spin!

Maybe "Trump's unlikely election" referred to his cock's "unlikely erection" and the alternative path was a blow job "I'm a sucker for a soft dick" - Melanie Griffith in Bonfire of the Vanities

There is an apocryphal story that’s been circulating around Washington for something like 50 years about how the Civil Service Board refused to let an agency fire an employee even though he had murdered his manager. So you’re right about Civil Service regs.

@Curious, Althouse says you’re rude. Besides, one of them is a moby, almost certainly in the pay of some organization bankrolled by Tom Steyer or George Soros or some other billionaire donor to the Democrats, and paid to pretend to be a country club Republican. But he doesn’t actually know any real Republicans, nor is there any country club who’d have him as a member, so he gets things wrong in his pose. The giveaway that he’s part of a large organization with a research staff behind him is that he “knows” obscure facts like who Scalia used to play golf with.

Why it is as if you are having to read a Washington post story much like Pravda. Discerning the ulterior motive behind it. Nowwhy oh why would a news organization have an ulterior motive and what oh what could that be? How long before we just assume they are lying, slanting and smearing until proven otherwise. For a republican, that time is now.

Why it is as if you are having to read a Washington post story much like Pravda. Discerning the ulterior motive behind it. Nowwhy oh why would a news organization have an ulterior motive and what oh what could that be? How long before we just assume they are lying, slanting and smearing until proven otherwise. For a republican, that time is now.

That Strzok is one kinky dude. How could a guy have sex on the same day he even thought about Hillary, the ultimate boner shrinker? Reminds me of what some comedian said about Roseanne's husband - "compared to him, I'm gay".

This really is the greatest scandal in US history. The mystery of why Hillary and her posse are not in prison is solved. Powerful people in the FBI needed to protect her so she could triumph over Trump in the election. Now we know who did it and how. With the cooperation of the press. OMG, does that swamp need to be drained.

"The WaPo is in the tank for Hillary and the democrats. It's the DNC house organ."

While this is true, I think it's more accurate to say that Washington, D.C. is a company town; the 'company' is the Federal Government; and the Post is the company newspaper. The question uppermost in the minds of the editorial staff on any given issue is, "...but is it good for the bureaucracy?"

And what if the target of a complex criminal investigation had taken millions in bribes from foreigners but the bribes could only work if one won the election. In that case would the target want to bribe a cop?

Blogger Original Mike said...Blogger iowan2 said..."Help me out. According the the WSJ The FBI refused to be interviewed by Mueller unless they signed Non disclosure statements."

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is a federal agency that polices personnel practices. It is not the same thing as Mueller's probe. The OSC interviewed top FBI officals regarding Hatch Act (re: political bias) violations in the Hillary email investigation. The FBI refused to let the OSC interview them unless it first signed unprecedented nondisclosure agreements, giving the FBI full authority to withhold the information from Congress.

Thanks for correction. But. How can any agency contract away, the constitutional power of congressional oversite?

"Thanks for correction. But. How can any agency contract away, the constitutional power of congressional oversite?"

One would hope they can't (and doesn't it speak volumes that they would try?). Sen Johnson gave them until Dec 27 to turn over the transcripts of the interviews. Assuming they ignore them, I sure hope Congress has the balls to up the ante.

By the early years of the 1970s, a series of troubling revelations had appeared in the press concerning intelligence activities. First came the revelations by Army intelligence officer Christopher Pyle in January 1970 of the U.S. Army's spying on the civilian population[1][2] and Senator Sam Ervin's Senate investigations produced more revelations.[3] Then on December 22, 1974, The New York Times published a lengthy article by Seymour Hersh detailing operations engaged in by the CIA over the years that had been dubbed the "family jewels". Covert action programs involving assassination attempts against foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by intelligence agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens.

Sam Ervin was a member of the Senate "Solid South" mafia who also took down Nixon.

Th Hersh articles were only partly true, as was most of his stuff, but the CIA had pissed off enough people.

You have to wake up pretty early to decry "Trumpism" before The Chuckster. He still hasn't processed the temerity of Trump winning the election instead of grabbing his ankles for Cankles. Sorry, Chuckles -- maybe one of your cucks can lose graciously in 2024 or 2028. Until then, embrace the winning and enjoy two scoops of ice cream.

Two FBI agents who dislike Trump have an affair. Therefore we should end the investigation into Russian interference?

I heard some congressman yesterday say that mueller should "put up or shut up". Actually, he has shut up. Republicans ar getting hysterical about the investigation. Soon the evidence will be out for everyone to see.

“We're talking about a senior FBI lawyer and a senior counterintelligence agent.”

Forget Trump for a minute. A senior counterintelligence agent is having an extramarital affair and pillowtalking electronically. This should have gotten him cashiered, minus his pension and perks. If you don’t know why it’s because you don’t want to.

The Post article is a load of crap. It smacks of desperation to explain away the obvious. Strzok and Page schemed to undermine the Clinton investigation and the Trump candidacy, Having failed to help Clinton and prevent Trump's election, they used their positions to sabotage the Trump presidency. The Post's theory insults its readers' intelligence.

It somehow seems appropriate to defend Clintonian corruption by arguing that it's just about sex.

@AnnAlthouseThanx for the link. The photos of Page's husband at their home reminds me of Paula Broadwell's husband when news of her illicit affair became national news. I cannot imagine it is fun to be a cuckold in front of the nation. The children look young enough not to understand quite yet the gravity of what is happening. A pitiable figure Strzok's wife is not much different than Petraeus' wife. Also a pitiable figure.

Perhaps we should not pity them too much. Hillary Clinton rode being a wronged wife to the Democratic nomination before we figured out that pity should only take you so far.

The Mueller investigation won’t be stopped, no matter what gets thrown at it.

Excerpt from an Andrew McCarthy article below:

“The fact that an FBI agent involved in the Clinton emails investigation was reportedly a partisan Democrat is not in itself damning.”

It didn’t matter how I felt about Bill and Hillary personally or politically — which was no secret to my law-enforcement friends and colleagues. This was a strict legal matter, and my sworn duty, like that of every other Justice Department prosecutor, was to enforce the law without fear or favor. President Clinton had the unreviewable authority to grant clemency. While the unsavory rationale for the commutations was obvious, it was far from clear that a politically motivated pardon was actionable, even if we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there had been a corrupt quid pro quo arrangement — which we couldn’t. End of story.”

“People who work in law enforcement tend to be engaged citizens, well-informed about current events. Many of them are passionate in their political convictions. In the New York metropolitan area, those convictions tend not to jibe with mine — although rank-and-file FBI agents tend to be more conservative than their high-ranking superiors, and than prosecutors educated in elite American schools. Political differences are fodder for good-natured ribbing in the hallway or over beers after work. But they get checked at the courthouse door, even in political-corruption cases. Law enforcement is a straightforward exercise: Figure out what the facts and law are, then apply the latter to the former.

I don’t know Agent Strzok, but people who do tell me he is an exceptional intelligence agent. They say his transfer — effectively, his demotion — to the FBI’s human-resources division is exactly the sort of thing that should be celebrated . . . in Moscow. You want to tell me he was a Hillary supporter who couldn’t abide Trump? Those attributes would have disqualified half the country from working on the Clinton emails caper, never mind half the FBI.”

“But if you’ve made up your mind that Peter Strzok is responsible for tanking the Hillary Clinton case, and that he was putting his thumb on Mueller’s scale against the Trump administration, you are way out ahead of what we actually know — and you’re probably wrong. “

I presume if WaPo comes up with an October 2016 text from Trump to his girlfriend reading, "Hey, baby, the election's in the bag; I've got a deal with the Russians. Horny?" the WaPo will be similarly "nothing to see here."

McCarthy's analysis is fine as far as it goes but his conclusion does not follow. His basic theory is the courthouse crowd theory: we all know and respect each other and all biases are checked at the door. ANy suggestion to the contrary is made by people who do not understand our culture or how we operate.

What is surprising is Mueller doing zero vetting of his staff. Zero. The Swamp is so deep in the DC culture that it simply never occurred to them that someone may take issue with staffing an investigation of a President regarding his campaign with partisans of the losing campaign. To them, it is simply the natural order of things.

And GOPe Cuck Chuck reminds all again why even his fucking dog hates him."

I just find it ironic that the person most obsessed with Trump labels anyone who has any admiration for Trumps accomplishments a "Trumpist".

Don't lecture me about treatment here; not about anything like civility, or unwarranted assumptions, or wrongheaded characterizations.

Daily on this blog, I've been accused of being a Democrat and a left-wing sympathizer. People have accused me of lying, about my having voted for Trump, and about having been a Republican Party poll watcher.

When in fact, my history on this blog, pre-Trump, is nothing but routine pro-Republican, pro-Walker, pro-Scalia, pro-Romney posts. And my complaints about Trump are mostly personal. Trump's stupidity; his personal cruelty and weird sociopathy; his blundering incompetence with language and policy.

I congratulated Trump openly on this blog for several things; the Gorsuch nomination (noting that Trump didn't actually have a whole lot to do with the success); Jeff Sessions as AG; Betsy DeVos at Education. Hard to imagine what sort of Dem sympathizer would say that.

Sorry, I am just not getting over the fact that Donald Trump has been a Truther, a Birther and a Vaxxer. Along with being a former Democrat, a former Clinton donor, and a former pro-abortion, pro-"assault weapons ban" Manhattan liberal.

Two agents sleeping together isn't a cause for ending the investigation. But...

The fact that multiple partisans hid their partisan biases, lied to Congress about it, stonewalled legal requests for documentation, worked to undermine the president, have been caught planning an insurance policy, paid Russian agents through a British foreign national for a dossier on Trump, while lying to Congress about it, illegally unmasked individuals in the Trump administration under phony guidance from an unknown person posing as a senior Obama aid... That? That makes me think MAYBE the investigation should come to a halt until we find out exactly what the hell is going on.

The fact the investigation only started due to a memo Comey wrote being illegally leaked about a subject both Comey and McCabe acknowledged wasn't obstruction of justice, under oath to Congress, also makes me wonder what the point of the investigation is.

The FBI's official position is Trump asking Comey to think about backing off wasn't coercion or illegal. They swore to it. Under oath.

Are we going to round up Comey and McCabe for perjury if they said that under oath while really thinking it was?

Just imagine a criminal case where the lead investigator is also one of the people closest, a mentor even, to one of the allegedly wronged people, who was personally asked by the wronged person to prosecute through secret channels, all while assembling a team of lawyers who wanted to take down the defendant, even going so far as to pay someone secretly for potentially damning information in a dossier that has several key facts wrong (incorrect dates, people being in two places at once, etc.), all while avoiding the judge's requests for transparency and refusing to provide exculpatory evidence to the defense (Comey's refusal to admit that Trump was right: He wasn't under investigation and that it wasn't obstruction until forced to at point of perjury).

Can anyone honestly say that if the defendant were anyone but Trump, they WOULDN'T be sympathetic as hell?

Honestly though, isn't this just an attempt at the Bill Clinton, "It is just sex," defense again? Demanding we avoid looking too closely at obvious wrong doing because, hey, it's just two people having sex, you Victorian prudes?

"Obviously, this is not political banter. Clearly indicates professional duties infected by political viewpoints, which is disqualifying. I was going on the published accounts I'd seen, which didn't include this one. Should follow my own advice to wait til all facts in."

My general opinion when the government stonewalls: We just assume the worst.

I can think of very few cases -- actually, zero -- where that has been wrong. F&F? Literally dozens of dead South Americans and at least a few Americans. Cash for Clunkers? Thousands of people unable to buy an affordable car for a net hurt on the economy. Tea Party Audits? Complete and total vindication of conservatives.

When has the government ever stonewalled and it turned out to be a nothingburger?

"Obviously, this is not political banter. Clearly indicates professional duties infected by political viewpoints, which is disqualifying. I was going on the published accounts I'd seen, which didn't include this one. Should follow my own advice to wait til all facts in."

The WaPo theory literally makes no sense. "That phone" that can't be traced is written about in a context that it does exist- Page is trying to give Strzok an explanation to use to on his wife is a possible interpretation. Now, it is entirely possible that this other phone is/was used exclusively to text about their affair and nothing else, but you really do have to examine the phone/s to determine whether or not this is true- this can only be done with a criminal subpoena. In any case, since we already have seen the political texts from their FBI communications equipment- what are the odds they didn't make other political texts on private phones? Not very high, and trending close to zero.

“But if you’ve made up your mind that Peter Strzok is responsible for tanking the Hillary Clinton case, and that he was putting his thumb on Mueller’s scale against the Trump administration, you are way out ahead of what we actually know — and you’re probably wrong. “

-- With what we know now... we know he was responsible for changing some of the wording to make Hillary's actions no longer sound as though they met criminal requirements. We know he was in on Comey's decision making on what the decision would be prior to interviewing Clinton, and we know he tried to avoid leaving a recording of his anti-Trump comments/actions. So... on at least one of those, we'd have been right on, and on the second one, well, mattering what you mean by putting his thumb on Mueller's scale against Trump, you may also be wright.

“On the positive side, Mueller immediately removed Strzok from the case after the texts came to light. (The other texter, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, had already left the team.) Further, a critical metric of Mueller’s tenure is how he has performed. To date, he has brought three sets of charges: an indictment against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates and two false-statements cases, against Michael Flynn (fleetingly Trump’s national security adviser) and George Papadopoulos (a minor Trump campaign adviser). None of these cases bears on the 2016 election or suggests any wrongdoing on Trump’s part.

Thus, while there is cause for concern, the results Mueller has produced so far appear free of political taint. And at least in the matter of Strzok, Mueller was scrupulous about removing what was, at the least, the appearance of impropriety.

That appearance is not established by mere expression of political opinion or activism. I was a federal prosecutor in New York for many years, and I was not shy about sharing my conservative political views. Nor were my colleagues — my best friends in the office were liberal Democrats. But it was understood that our politics were checked at the door.

Personally, I am not much alarmed that several of Mueller’s staffers have anti-Trump political views. But as more evidence emerges, I have become increasingly disturbed about whether those views will taint perception of the Mueller investigation, particularly in the case of Andrew Weissmann, a key Mueller deputy.”

"Thus, while there is cause for concern, the results Mueller has produced so far appear free of political taint."

-- If that were true, why did Mueller hide these facts, despite being required by law to share them with Congress? Why did the FBI deliberately attempt to hide the fact they paid for the Steele Dossier?

I get that we want to give Mueller and his team the benefit of the doubt, but there's not much benefit left to give.

“For Trump, the best outcome is that he leaves Mueller in place and is exonerated. For Mueller, the best outcome is that the public accepts the integrity of whatever decisions he makes. In that regard, I began with the belief that Mueller was a superb choice whose well-earned reputation for personal integrity would be critical. I still think so, but I’ve been shaken by his puzzling insensitivity to the imperative that his staff be, and be seen as, driven by evidence, not anti-Trump bias.”

Another commenter pointed it out, again, but it bears repeating this: when Mueller learned of Strzok's proclaimed biases, he buried the texts, and the reason is almost 100% certain- Strzok is the agent who interviewed Flynn. It is no accident that Strzok's texts were revealed the day after Flynn's pleas was filed with the court. Do you think Flynn's attorney knew about Strzok's bias? If you do, I have a bridge to Long Island to sell you.

"None of these cases bears on the 2016 election or suggests any wrongdoing on Trump’s part."

-- Which should be a huge red flag that this is not a apolitical investigation. This is a fishing expedition. The actions those three people took are not materially different from what came to light about Clinton's aides, who suffered zero indictments. In fact, all three of those people, none of them destroyed subpoenaed evidence, for example.

"Obviously, this is not political banter. Clearly indicates professional duties infected by political viewpoints, which is disqualifying. I was going on the published accounts I'd seen, which didn't include this one. Should follow my own advice to wait til all facts in."" (my bolding)

He refers to a single text, which surely is the "insurance policy" text. I've read multiple places that the media, including the NYT and WaPo, are not reporting on the contents of this text (boogles the mind). Hell, the WaPo article Althouse blogged about here doesn't mention it. Clearly this is to allow them to use the "they're only political opinions" argument, which is all that's coming out of the lefties mouths these days. McCarthy fell into their trap.

Apparently Inga, steve uhr (and I bet even Chuck) doesn't even know what we are talking about.

“Another commenter pointed it out, again, but it bears repeating this: when Mueller learned of Strzok's proclaimed biases, he buried the texts, and the reason is almost 100% certain- Strzok is the agent who interviewed Flynn. It is no accident that Strzok's texts were revealed the day after Flynn's pleas was filed with the court. Do you think Flynn's attorney knew about Strzok's bias? If you do, I have a bridge to Long Island to sell you.”

McCARTHY: As I understand it and as Comey testified to a closed session, according to The Wall Street Journal as then FBI director Comey testified to a closed session of the House Intelligence Committee in March, the reason they hadn't brought any case against Flynn at that point was because the agents that interviewed him believed him and that was [Peter] Strzok. So the fact that Flynn ended up pleaded guilty to lying in that interview was not Strzok's idea. Evidently, Strzok was not pushing that. That was the very aggressive Mueller investigators toward the end.

Even if they were just political opinions, delivered by government employees on government tech, they should not have been withheld from Congress. When you withhold it from the legitimate oversight body, and then later give me a bunch of stuff and claim there was nothing to see, my first thought isn't "How unreasonable of me!" it is "Did they sanitize this?"

The fact that there's at least one message that should have set off red flags makes me think that they should both be fired, hauled in and forced to testify about their misuse of government property. Congress needs to make it a point who answers to who.

I'm still wondering why we have not hard about Bill Priestap in all this. He was Strzok's superior and would know if the FBI paid for the Fusion oppo research documents.

Bill Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation. He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss. If anyone in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know.

I guess we all have different impressions of Trumpism. For me Trumpism =

~ "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated..."~ "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."~ "Grab 'em by the pussy."~ Flynn, Gorka, Scaramucci, Bannon, Omarosa, etc.~ "I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!"~ "mean" (Trump on the House Republicans' Obamacare replacement.)~ "moron" (Secretary of State Rex Tillesron on Trump.)~ Trump on the New York Times, in October '16: "the failing @nytimes..."~ Trump on the New York Times, in November '16: "The Times is a great, great American jewel..."~Trump on the New York Times, in December '17: "Another false story, this time in the Failing @nytimes..."

"Read his subsequent articles. He continues to say basically the same thing."

On this specific point, no he does not.

Do you even know the contents of the specific text he was referring to?

"Obviously, this is not political banter. Clearly indicates professional duties infected by political viewpoints, which is disqualifying. I was going on the published accounts I'd seen, which didn't include this one."

Stzork may have believed Flynn. It would be kind of funny if his gullibility in believing everything Clinton's team told him is why his opinion in Flynn didn't matter. He was literally too stupid for his judgement to count.

Andy McCabe canceled his testimony before Congress after the texts became public. He is rescheduled to testify this Tuesday. It will be interesting if he shows lawyer-ed up, then we know the shit fan has a reverse on it.

Trey Gowdy commented on Fox that he would be a little surprised if Mccabe was still an employ of the FBI by next week.

Correct. However, just review the extraordinary timing of some of the IG's info releases.

In each case it was right before scheduled testimony of subjecrs of his investigation and exposed aspects of activities that brought sunlight to their actions.

The most recent being the Stzrok text release which caused Stzrok to come down with a serious case of "Last Minute OMG I Have A Previously Undiscovered Scheduling Conflict So I Wont Be Able To Answer Questions Under Oath Today" condition.

It is astounding how brazenly the media is trying to bury the "insurance policy" text. Smoking gun of conspiracy against Trump if there ever was one, and we already had the smoking gun of obstruction of the investigation into Hillary. We're still in the Denial stage, obviously, but the other stages are pretty much inevitable at this point, I think.

We're talking about a senior FBI lawyer and a senior counterintelligence agent."

There is no beyond this. Both should be fired immediately and both should be looking a long prison sentences. Indeed there needs to a massive culling at the FBI along with numerous prosecutions. The agency has gone rogue. The same with the IRS and the DoJ.

The WaPo theory literally makes no sense. "That phone" that can't be traced is written about in a context that it does exist ...

The WaPo explanation makes sense to me.

Peter Strzok had a phone issued by the FBI. He used it all the time to communicate with various people -- one of whom was Lisa Page.

While he is at home with his wife, he receives many text messages from Page. Somehow the wife knows that many messages are from Page. Eventually the wife becomes angry with him about his exchanging so many messages with Page.

"That phone" is this phone that was issued to him by the FBI -- as opposed to her personal cell phone.

All Of Hillary's MenThe evidence of collusion on her behalf piles up.https://spectator.org/all-of-hillarys-men/?

"So far we have seen only a fraction of Strzok’s texts. But it is already clear from the few available that the massive abuse of power against Trump rested on an enormous sense of entitlement — that Trump was a singular “menace” to be stopped by an entrenched ruling class. From this elite drunk on its own rectitude came the foulest free-for-all atmosphere imaginable, in which those who cried “collusion” the loudest engaged it in the most."

But the President's defenders are off base when they try read conspiracy into Peter Strzok's "insurance policy" message. Talking about Trump's chances in August 2016, here's what Strzok wrote: "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office [Andy McCabe is the FBI deputy director and married to a Democratic Virginiia State Senate candidate] for that there's no way he gets elected — but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40…."

Lots of folks on the right are suggesting that "insurance policy" is some opaque but sinister Deep State code for black ops in the event of a Trump victory.

Give me a break. Read the text again. Strzok is reacting to the argument that there's no point getting worked up because Trump is bound to lose. To which he says that the odds may be against a Trump victory but that's no reason to be complacent. Then he gives an example: The odds are very much against you dying before the age of 40, but you probably bought insurance at that age because dying with a young family would be such a disaster. It's a reasonable concern even if the event is unlikely. For the same reason, in Strzok's view, horror at the prospect of a Trump presidency is reasonable even though the prospect is remote. Could he have written it more gracefully to avoid ambiguity? Sure. But if you want to argue that, I hope you'll publish all the 2 am texts you've sent to your lovers so we have a model of the clarity that's possible.

In the meantime, chill. The texts say a lot, none of it good, about the FBI's culture and Bob Mueller's staffing choices. They say nothing about a grand plot by the Deep State.”

The next question is: how did this happen, & over what period of time?

The impression the DC bureaucracy likes to peddle is that the improprieties of the pre-70s FBI was all about J. Edgar Hoover & his paranoia. No more J. Edgar, a few tune ups here & there, & it's all better.

Maybe, in truth, the FBI never got better. It just got more discreet, or curried a different set of protectors.

But now, assume the FBI got clean after Hoover. When did it go off the rails? Clinton? Bush II? We here would, of course, like to blame Obama, because we think everything else went to shit under his 8 years, so why not the FBI, too? For the Feds to fix the FBI, an understanding of when the rot started to bore in will be vital to the process of fixing it.

I imagine that when Peter Strzok is home with his wife, he talks along on his FBI phone (i.e. the phone that "cannot be traced"). A large portion of these phone communications are not text messages, but rather are ordinary voice conversations.

When Peter and Lisa Page talk aloud, the wife recognizes Lisa's voice. Eventually the wife becomes angry that Lisa is calling Peter so much at home. Perhaps Lisa even hears the wife yelling at Peter.

Then Lisa sends Peter a text message advising him what to say to his wife.

Makes perfect sense to me, and it seems to be the explanation given by Peter and/or Lisa.

No it just became more infected with leftwing culture, even a reasonably sober fellow like Louis freeh engaged in operation megiddo. The witchhunt for militias while Al qeda was developing bench strength.

In the meantime, chill. The texts say a lot, none of it good, about the FBI's culture and Bob Mueller's staffing choices.

What do you think conservatives who rail about the "Deep State" are railing against? A "Three Days of the Condor" type plot? No, what they rail against is a bureaucratic culture that protects its own interests before its mission. It's about bureaucracies that put their interests before the interests of the American people.

The mindset of the Deep State lives in the Fed's bureaucratic culture. It lives in "staffing choices". Haven't you ever heard the phrase "Personnel is policy."?

Re that liberty insurrection piece by dyer, steels first contact was Greta, who was the bureaus top organized crime expert, they worked together on the FIFA investigation, but to shepherd the material you need a rabbi in our, other guides with stzok and Co.

Hillary Clinton's right-hand woman was interviewed by Strzok and questioned about her knowledge of the existence of Clinton's secret server.

Strzok wrote a summary of the interview which said: 'Abedin did not know that Clinton had a private server until about a year and a half ago when it became public knowledge.'

In fact Abedin had been involved in a series of email exchanges which demonstrated that she knew about the server, including one from an IT aide whihc said: 'I had to shut down the server. Someone was trying to hack us...'"

Yep, there's incontrovertible evidence that both Abedin and Mills lied (to Strzok) about their knowledge of the server. Apparently, this would void their immunity deal if the case were to get reopened...